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Report on Sustainability-Related Issuer Disclosures

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Report on Sustainability-Related Issuer Disclosures Report on Sustainability-related Issuer Disclosures Final Report The Board OF THE INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION OF SECURITIES COMMISSIONS FR04/21 JUNE 2021 i Copies of publications are available from: The International Organization of Securities Commissions website www.iosco.org © International Organization of Securities Commissions 2021. All rights reserved. Brief excerpts may be reproduced or translated provided the source is stated. ii Contents Executive summary ............................................................................................................................... 1 A vision for an ISSB under the IFRS Foundation .............................................................................. 2 Next steps ............................................................................................................................................ 5 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 6 2. Background and context ............................................................................................................... 8 2.1. Background on previous IOSCO work ................................................................................... 9 2.2. Developments in the international sustainability reporting landscape .................................. 10 2.3. Sustainability reporting in the European Union .................................................................... 12 3. Investors’ information demands and reporting gaps and shortcomings ............................... 13 3.1. High-level overview of observations .................................................................................... 14 3.2. Detailed summary of observations ........................................................................................ 14 3.2.1. The completeness, consistency and comparability of sustainability-related information ........... 14 3.2.2. Existing principles and frameworks ........................................................................................... 16 3.2.3. Topic scope and materiality ........................................................................................................ 20 3.2.4. Narrative disclosures and quantitative metrics ........................................................................... 21 3.2.5. Linkage between sustainability reporting and business strategies/ financial implications ......... 22 4. Materiality of sustainability-related information .................................................................... 24 4.1. The objectives and principles of securities regulation .......................................................... 24 4.2. Different materiality lenses ................................................................................................... 24 4.3. Overlaps in reporting under the two materiality lenses ........................................................ 25 4.4. Convergence of information needs over time ....................................................................... 28 5. Priorities and mechanisms to improve sustainability-related disclosures ............................. 30 5.1. Priority areas of improvement ............................................................................................... 31 5.2. Key elements of IOSCO’s vision to deliver the priorities for improvement ........................ 33 5.3. IOSCO’s engagement with stakeholders .............................................................................. 42 6. High-level assessment of existing content ................................................................................. 43 6.1. Attributes of a common international reporting standard for sustainability ......................... 43 6.2. Existing content of TCFD and the alliance of sustainability reporting organisations ........... 45 6.3. Assessment of the Prototype climate-related financial disclosure standard ......................... 46 7. A consultative committee under the IFRS Foundation ........................................................... 51 7.1. A consultative committee within the IFRS structure ............................................................ 51 8. Next steps for IOSCO ................................................................................................................. 53 Glossary ............................................................................................................................................... 59 iii Executive summary The financial sector has a crucial role to play in helping to support the transition to a more sustainable future. Internationally, financial services firms and capital markets are deepening their consideration of sustainability-related risks, opportunities and impacts, for the benefit of investors and to help mobilise capital to support the transition. Since 2018, IOSCO has sharpened its focus on the implications of these developments for securities regulators. Further to the publication of the report, Sustainable Finance and the Role of Securities Regulators and IOSCO in April 2020, IOSCO established a Board-level Sustainable Finance Taskforce (STF). The STF is carrying out work in three areas: • corporate issuers’ sustainability-related disclosures • asset managers’ disclosures and investor protection issues • the role of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) data and ratings providers The focus of this report is the STF’s work on corporate issuers’ sustainability-related disclosures. The aim of the STF’s work in this area has been to identify decision-useful categories of disclosures for investors and other market participants. Securities regulators and other capital market authorities are responsible for the oversight of capital markets. This oversight responsibility generally includes the development, application and enforcement of accounting standards, auditing standards, and disclosure regulations. Principle 16 of IOSCO´s Objectives and Principles of Securities Regulation states that “there should be full, accurate and timely disclosure of financial results, risk and other information which is material to investors’ decisions.” The regulatory framework should ensure that issuers deliver information material to investors’ informed investment decisions on an ongoing basis. These principles support IOSCO’s objectives of fostering investor protection, and the promotion of fair, efficient and transparent markets. This requires consideration of the adequacy, accuracy and timeliness of both financial and sustainability-related disclosures, including disclosure of risks that are material to investors’ decisions. These disclosures may pertain to specified transactions, periodic reports and ongoing disclosure and reporting of material developments. In developing its work, IOSCO’s STF has coordinated with several other disclosure-related initiatives across international organisations. These include workstreams at the Financial Stability Board (FSB), the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS), and the International Platform on Sustainable Finance (IPSF). IOSCO is also the lead knowledge partner on sustainability disclosures for the G20 Sustainable Finance Working Group (SFWG). This report will feed directly into that group’s work. Over the year since the STF was established, momentum has been building in both public and private sector initiatives to enhance the consistency, comparability and reliability of sustainability-related disclosures. This work toward enhanced disclosure aims to support investors’ evolving informational needs and improve the functioning of markets by promoting the implementation of a global corporate sustainability reporting architecture. The UN Climate Summit (COP 26) in November 2021 has helped galvanize efforts in this area. 1 In several jurisdictions, work has continued to adopt the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) into legal and regulatory frameworks. In 2017, the European Union (EU) embedded the TCFD framework in its corporate disclosure regulation on non-financial information, and the European Commission recently published a proposal for a Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). Progress has also been made in several other jurisdictions, including Hong Kong, India, Japan, New Zealand and the UK.. It is also increasingly recognised that the TCFD’s recommendations are an important milestone on the pathway towards international corporate reporting standards on climate change and wider sustainability related matters. In this regard, the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Foundation is working to establish an International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) to sit alongside the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). IOSCO has encouraged this initiative, and in order to guide the IFRS Foundation’s work to best support securities regulators’ objectives, IOSCO has deepened its collaboration with the IFRS Foundation as the work has progressed. The G7 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Communiqué of 5 June 2021 emphasized investors’ need for “high quality, comparable and reliable information on climate risks”. The Communiqué announced G7 support to move towards “mandatory climate-related financial disclosures that provide consistent and decision-useful information for market participants and that are based on the Task Force on Climate-related Financial
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